


On the Same Page

by ricekrispyjoints



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Bisexual Character, Fake Marriage, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Misunderstandings, Post-Canon, Tumblr Prompt, Weddings, allusions to sex, both of them actually, haus 2.0
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-01
Updated: 2019-02-01
Packaged: 2019-10-20 13:57:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17623679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ricekrispyjoints/pseuds/ricekrispyjoints
Summary: Freshly graduated, living it up is a little harder than expected when faced with your first full-time job.But luckily, Ransom has the perfect idea for how to save some spare time for both him and Holster: they should hook up with each other!There's no way this will spiral out of control ... right?





	On the Same Page

**Author's Note:**

> So [Charlie ](http://www.i-wont-hesitate-bitchhhh.tumblr.com) sent me a prompt for "acciental marriage fake dating for literally any omgcp ship i have no preference".  
> The post it was based on just said "describe how i would fic it" but then my ass got too excited about two of my favorite tropes, and so i just... wrote this. in an afternoon. #oops
> 
> ANYWAY no editing we die like mne but please let me know if there are any Hot Messes to clean up

Living in the Haus 2.0 is, in a word, _swawesome_.

However, finding time to find a nice girl to date has been pretty scarce for Ransom.

And by scarce, of course, he means non-existent.

Excel gave him a negative value, but that’s gotta be a mistake, right?

Anyway, there’s only one reasonable solution to this: _brojobs_.

Excel says that Holster somehow has even more negative free time than Ransom, and they’ve been besties for years. Ransom is certain he’ll be down. (Nice pun, right?)

So over breakfast the next day, after Shitty has left for class and before Lardo has woken up, Ransom mentions his amazing idea.

“So Holtzy, I’m sure you’ve noticed our complete lack of free time as we foray into the world of full-time work grind,” Ransom says casually.

“Indubitably,” Holster replies around a mouthful of cereal.

“So, I have a proposal for you.”

“I’m listening, bro.”

“I think we should give each other _a hand_ ,” Ransom says, waggling his eyebrows.

“Brojobs?” Holster replies.

Ransom nods.

“Yeah, that works for me,” Holster says with an almost indifferent shrug. “But you know, bro, we could take it a step further. My mom’s all worried about me having a healthy work-life balance and shit—I think she texted Shitty, too, because he brought it up with me last week.”

“So what are you suggesting?” Ransom asks.

“We could fake date,” Holster says. “What’s better proof of winning at Adulting than having a full-time job _and_ a committed romantic relationship?”

Ransom considers the proposal for a moment. Neither of them have ever dated a guy, but that doesn’t mean Ransom at least hasn’t been curious how it might go. He’s hooked up with a few dudes, and he knows Holster has too, but this would be a little different.

Still, their friends are good people, and if they run into any shit, they can probably get some advice from Jack and Bitty.

“Alright, yeah. I’ll start an Excel sheet so we make sure we’ve got the right balance of affection and PDA and dates or whatever,” Ransom says.

“Swawesome, bro.”

Holster drinks the milk in his cereal bowl then checks the time on his phone.

“Shit, Rans, we gotta run!”

 

Not only do none of their friends bat an eyelash at their relationship, but somehow things work out _so well_ between them that the vague annoyance at not having a girlfriend has been entirely replaced with feelings of “why did I ever want a girlfriend when I could have had this the whole time?”

Well, at least Ransom feels that way.

They don’t really talk about their feelings much, because despite the hookups and the dinner and a movie nights, this is still a _fake_ relationship. They’re not _actually_ dating.

Ransom frowns at the Excel sheet he’s working on.

Excel is great for money, time management, grade calculations, habit trackers, and all kinds of things, but emotions? Not really one of them.

It’s been an entire year of this fake relationship, and not only is that the longest relationship either of them has ever been in, it’s also been the lowest drama and the highest rewarding.

Ransom has definitely heard “your significant other should be your best friend” before, but he never considered taking that literally.

Now, it seems like it’s staring him in the face.

But a year of pretend is a lot, and Ransom thinks it might be time to bring up some feelings with Holster, just to be sure they’re on the same ~~spreadsheet~~ page.  

They’re cuddling in Holster’s bed, and it’s Ransom’s turn to be big spoon, so he has Holster’s back to his chest, stroking Holster’s forearm absently.

“Hey bro,” Holster says. “I wanna run something by you.”

“What’s up, buttercup?” Ransom says with a smile.

“Well, it’s been a year since we started this, right?” Holster says. “And my parents have been saying how nice it is that like, I ‘finally have a stable relationship’ or whatever.”

“For sure, for sure. My parents have mentioned it, too.”

“So, I’ve kinda been thinking about like, what do stable, year-long relationships do?”

Ransom reminds himself to keep breathing, but he can definitely feel the anxiety levels rising.

“Uh… continue dating?”

Holster sighs, but it’s not an impatient sound.

“So I actually made an Excel sheet,” Holster says, and now Ransom is even _more_ nervous about where this is going. “I thought it would help appeal to your way of thinking, you know? That this isn’t just some silly idea, but you can see exactly how I came to this conclusion, right?”

“Oooookay?”

“Hang on,” Holster says, and he gets up out of bed and grabs his laptop off the desk.

Ransom sits up, and Holster returns to bed and opens the laptop on his lap.

He logs in, shielding the screen a bit from Ransom.

“Don’t freak out on me, okay?” Holster says, and then passes the laptop to Ransom.

The spreadsheet is titled “Reasons why we should get married”.

A hysterical imitation of a laugh escapes Ransom’s mouth.

He is rapidly hurtling towards Coral Reef Mode.

He just wanted to have a little Feelings Talk, and here Holster is, suggesting they get married _via Excel spreadsheet_.

He just needs to breathe. Breathing is very important.

Breathing leads to continued living, which Ransom is generally fond of.

Breathing in, breathing out.

Yes.

Great work, buddy.

“Too much?” Holster asks, tentatively, looking at Ransom with such a crestfallen look that it somehow overrides most of Ransom’s anxiety.

He can’t let Holster look like _that_. Especially not because of him.

“It’s… it’s not too much, but I think it needs a little more discussion than an Excel sheet,” Ransom says, finally.

“Valid and fair,” Holster says.

 

They talk it over from a purely practical point of view: positive relationship over a full year, great sex, and tax breaks go in the pros column, while wedding costs and family expectations goes in the cons.

Just because their parents would like it doesn’t seem like a good enough reason to get _married_.

“We could do a super chill wedding though,” Ransom says, and he’s not even sure how he got so invested in this idea. “Bitty could cater for us, you know if we bought the food he’d do it for free.”

“We should still pay him at least a little though, bro.”

“Oh yeah. And we can get some of the frogs or something to help him out. I hear Dex has developed some mad cooking skills lately,” Ransom notes.

“Well shit, that’s awesome. Fish or chicken?” Holster teases, and just like that, they’ve decided to get married.

And Ransom still hasn’t told Holster that he’s really, actually fallen for him.

 

The tuxes are rented, and Nurse spent three days learning the guitar chords to a song they could walk down the aisle to. Bitty has possibly baked more pies than people who were invited, Holster’s mom made the appetizers, Chowder tossed salads and Dex handled the main course.

Lardo decorated the community center gym, complete with a very avant-garde take on a chuppah, and Jack had insisted on paying for the rental fee of the gym and Lardo’s art materials. (He thinks Ransom and Holster don’t know, though.)

Shitty, of course, is officiating.

Ransom’s and Holster’s immediate family is there—parents, grandparents, siblings, and a scattering of aunts and uncles and cousins.

Counting plus ones, there’s about sixty people who showed up.

And as Ransom peaks outside the door, he hears an all-too-familiar, all-too- _Russian_ voice.

He slams the door.

_“Alexei Mashkov came to my wedding_ ,” Ransom hisses at Lardo, who is acting as hair, makeup, and best-bro all in one today.

“Chill,” she says simply as she ties Ransom’s tie around her own neck. Then, she loosens it and passes it to Ransom. “You gotta learn to tie your own ties, dude. You’re gonna be married in like forty-five minutes.”

“Yeah but Holster already knows how to tie my ties because he learned for his bar mitzvah and _you can’t just ignore the fact that Alexei Mashkov came to my wedding_.”

“I didn’t ignore it. I said ‘chill’. Now stop fidgeting, I gotta go check on your man next door.”

“Lardo! Don’t leave me!” Ransom wails.

Lardo just laughs. “I’ll send Bits in for you, okay? Holster doesn’t have your cheekbones, I gotta contour on him.”

“LARISSA DUAN,” Ransom shrieks, but she’s gone.

Ransom is only alone for a few seconds, though, as Bitty comes in and talks him down, telling him all about how the gym looks so nice, and how he’s pleased as punch to see his two good friends get married, and he’s only a little miffed that they’re getting married before he and Jack.

 

Sooner than he thought possible, it’s showtime.

“How is this my life,” Ransom mutters to himself.

Neither of them wanted to do some weird heteronormative shit with one person waiting at the altar and the other walking down the aisle, so they decide to both come down the aisle.

Holster goes first, because Adam is alphabetically before Justin, and that was the only way they could pick who went first.

(They tell their parents it’s because Adam proposed.)

 

Ransom is sure that Nursey did an admirable job on the guitar, and that Shitty had good things to say about their loving relationship or something, but it passes in a blur.

When Shitty asks them to exchange their vows, Holster goes first.

They had kept their vows secret, but Ransom has been dying to hear what Holster is going to say. (Ransom knows he struggled to come up with something that was sufficiently romantic but not too soul-baring.)

“I was gonna make my vows on an Excel spreadsheet,” Holster jokes, giving the audience a goofy grin. A ripple of light laughter passes through most of the crowd before he continues. “Ransy—Justin: You’ve been my best bro for a long time now, and I’ve always been able to count on you to have my back, to give me advice, to cheer me up when I’m down. Over this past year and a half, now I know I can count on you to love me, too. Dating you has been the best time of my life, and I never want it to end.

“So, yeah.”

Oh, no. Holster is misty-eyed. Ransom is definitely not going to keep his cool if Holster starts crying.

Ransom shakes his head slowly in a kind of stupefied wonder. He has never been more glad that he wrote down his vows on an index card, because his brain is absolutely empty.

What did he write again?

He looks at the card, blinking rapidly to keep his vision clear. He reads the vows he wrote to himself and is relieved that they’re not stupid and they mesh well with Holster’s.

(But of course they do: they’ve been on the same wavelength for years.)

When the silence starts to feel suffocating, he realizes he hasn’t said the vows _out loud_ yet.

“Adam!” he says, way too loudly. He grimaces, and tries again. “Adam I um… I think what really makes us work, is the fact that we’re such close friends. You’ve seen me at my worst, my most vulnerable – my coral reef—and at my best, my strongest, my happiest. And you’ve never tried to magically fix anything, but you’re there, by my side, no matter what, doing what you can to help me through life, and what more could I ask for? So I’m glad you’ll be there by my side…” he gulps, and finally adds, “forever.”

Shitty closes his eyes and just nods his head. “You two were really made for each other,” he says quietly.

“By the power vested in me by the state of Massachusetts,” Shitty says, and all Ransom can think is _deep breaths, deep breaths_ … _Here we go_.

“I know pronounce you husband and husband.”

Lardo scurries forward and places a wrapped-up glass on the ground, which Holster stomps on, the crowd yells mazel tov, and they kiss.

And just like that, they’re married.

 

Newlywed life is exciting.

For one, they got a ton of kickass gifts at their wedding.

Secondly, they took a whole week off of work to “honeymoon”, which is an awfully fancy way to say take a roadtrip to the five nearest NHL rinks and have sex in five different hotel rooms (and once, the car).

Thirdly, they have _rings_.

Ransom can’t stop staring at his.

His first day back at work he can barely focus.

He needs to tell Holster that this isn’t fake, but how on earth does one bring that up _sixteen months_ into a fake relationship and nine days into a _marriage_ … “Oh hey, I actually really love you, like for real, no joke”??

The longer he puts it off, the more ridiculous it becomes.

He _knows_ this.

But he can’t seem to stop digging this hole he’s gotten himself into.

Maybe he’ll hit the magma-center of the earth soon and just melt.

Problem solved.

Ransom sighs. No, running away will not solve this, and melting into goo at the earth’s core will only make Holster sad.

He needs to toughen up.

He makes it through the work day by a miracle (or his boss cutting him a little slack since it’s his first day back; she probably realized his head was completely in the clouds).

He finds Holster, they take the bus home, and Holster starts cooking dinner because it’s his turn.

Everything is weirdly normal, like Ransom isn’t about to drop a bombshell on their personal lives.

They make small talk with Lardo and Shitty, discussing work or group chat or something they saw on the internet.

Ransom clears dishes, and Lardo heads back to work on an art piece she’s trying to get into a gallery somewhere.

Shitty offers for them to join him for a smoke, and Holster looks like he’s about to agree.

“We have plans,” Ransom jumps in.

“We do?” Holster asks amiably. “Babe, why didn’t you tell me?”

He kisses Ransom on the nose.

This man is going to be the death of him, Ransom thinks as he leaves the kitchen.

“Another time, Shitty,” Holster says, and follows Ransom into their bedroom.

Holster kisses Ransom as soon as the door is closed, and Ransom lets him, figuring he should get one last good kiss in before he makes things… weird.

When he pulls back, Holster starts to reach for Ransom’s shirt to take it off, but Ransom grabs his hand gently.

“I want to tell you something,” he says.

“Is it that you’re not a virgin? Because I knew that going into this marriage, and babe, I accept you,” Holster teases.

“No, I want to tell you something important. Personal,” Ransom says.

“Oh, okay,” Holster says. “You alright? Everything okay? I don’t need to make Lardo go hurt someone?”

“Bro, you wouldn’t hurt them for me?” Ransom deadpans.

“You and I both know that Lardo is much scarier. Plus, as your lover—nay, husband—and a prior D-man, I would immediately be suspected of the crime. Lardo has the element of stealth.”

“Valid points,” Ransom concedes. “But not needed. I’m okay, no ass-kicking required.”

 “Alright, then what’s up?”

Ransom decides that direct honestly is the best option. “I love you.”

Holy shit, he did it.

“Well, I love you too, Rans,” Holster says, and he doesn’t _get it_.

How was that not direct enough?

“Not just like, ‘Bro, I love you,’ but like, I _love_ you.”

“I love you too,” Holster repeats, and he’s not _getting it_.

“Adam, are you listening to me? I’m saying this… this whole thing, it’s not fake for me.”

“Justin, are you telling me that you agreed to _marry me_ believing that I was not _actually_ in love with you?!”

“You’re _what?!_ ” Ransom shrieks.

“Holy shit, Justin, I’m… Every time I’ve said I love you, you thought we were just bros being bros?”

“We said I love you a ton before we started _fake dating_ , may I remind you!”

“Did you miss that conversation we had where I was like ‘I think there’s really something here’ and you said, ‘yeah totally’?” Holster exclaims. “How was that not ending the fake part?”

“ _When_ was that conversation?” Ransom asks, because he very much does not remember any discussion of the sort.

“Like, four months in, dude.”

“I have… no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Holy shit. Okay, clearly I needed to be more explicit then, if it made that little impact on you.”

“I love when you’re explicit,” Ransom jokes weakly, and Holster, bless him, laughs.

“Alright. From now on, let it be known that I _love_ you, I am _in love_ with you, and I’m so, so glad I married you. We on the same page?”

“Yeah,” Ransom says. “We are.”

“Good,” Holster says, and gives Ransom a chaste kiss.

“So if we’re both on the same page,” Ransom says, breaking apart for a moment, “I guess it’s time to start the next _chapter_ of our lives together,” Ransom says.

Holster groans. “That was terrible, bro.”

“And you’re stuck with me _forever.”_

“Yeah,” Holster grins, “I am.”

**Author's Note:**

> i already have like 5 other prompts from this ask meme and 483204294 personal ideas for fics but writing requests is super fun, so feel free to send something  
> come find me on tumblr as [ricekrispyjoints](http://www.ricekrispyjoints.tumblr.com), if you're into that kind of thing


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